People who bought this also bought...

Deathless

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to Western European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories that have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the 20th century.

Palimpsest

Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse - a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers.

Every Heart a Doorway

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions - slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere...else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced...they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

Radiance

Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Every year the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year, and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind - she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

A Natural History of Dragons

From Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, Isabella, Lady Trent is known to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation and her prospects to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and how she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

The Witches of New York: A Novel

New York in the spring of 1880 is a place alive with wonder and curiosity. Determined to learn the truth about the world, its residents enthusiastically engage in both scientific experimentation and spiritualist pursuits. Séances are the entertainment of choice in exclusive social circles, and many enterprising women - some possessed of true intuitive powers and some gifted with the art of performance - find work as mediums.

Dreadnought

Danny Tozer has a problem: She just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny's body into what she's always thought it should be. Now there's no hiding that she's a girl.

Elizabeth's Legacy: Royal Institute of Magic, Book 1

Two years after his parents' sudden disappearance, Ben Greenwood stumbles upon a cryptic letter that could shed some light on their whereabouts. But before he can track them down, he'll need to find the mysterious organization that sent the letter: The Royal Institute of Magic. To succeed, Ben will have to navigate a land filled with fantastic creatures and spellshooters, where magic can be bought and sold, to unravel an ancient family secret that could hold the key to defeating an evil the institute has been fighting for the last 500 years.

Ink and Bone: The Great Library

Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly - but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden. Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market.

A Darker Shade of Magic: A Darker Shade of Magic, Book 1

Kell is one of the last Travelers - magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes. As such, he can choose where he lands. There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there's Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. There's White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne.

The Sumage Solution: San Andreas Shifters, Book 1

Can a gentle werewolf heal the heart of a smart-mouthed mage? New York Times best-seller Gail Carriger, writing as GL Carriger, presents an offbeat gay romance in which a sexy werewolf with a white knight complex meets a bad-boy mage with an attitude problem. Sparks (and other things) fly.

Howl's Moving Castle

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and ALA Notable and Best of the Year in Young Adult Fiction, Howl's Moving Castle is by acclaimed fantasy writer Diane Wynne Jones amd was transformed into an Academy Award nominated animated motion picture by Hayao Miyazaki. On a rare venture out from her step-mother's hat shop, Sophie attracts the attention of a witch, who casts a terrible spell transforming the young girl into an old crone.

Uprooted

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for 10 years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

Bookworm: Bookworm Series, Book 1

Elaine is an orphan girl who has grown up in a world where magical ability brings power. Her limited talent was enough to ensure a magical training, but she's very inexperienced and was lucky to get a position working in the Great Library. Now, the Grand Sorcerer - the most powerful magician of them all - is dying, although initially that makes little difference to Elaine; she certainly doesn't have the power to compete for higher status in the Golden City. But all that changes when she triggers a magical trap....

The Invisible Library

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant, Kai, she's posted to an alternative London. Their mission: to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it's already been stolen. London's underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book.

Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales. In Norse Mythology, Gaiman fashions primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds; delves into the exploits of the deities, dwarves, and giants; and culminates in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and the rebirth of a new time and people.

The Mermaid's Sister

There is no cure for being who you truly are.… In a cottage high atop Llanfair Mountain, sixteen-year-old Clara lives with her sister, Maren, and guardian Auntie. By day, they gather herbs for Auntie's healing potions. By night, Auntie spins tales of faraway lands and wicked fairies. Clara's favorite story tells of three orphan infants—Clara, who was brought to Auntie by a stork; Maren, who arrived in a seashell; and their best friend, O'Neill, who was found beneath an apple tree. One day, Clara discovers shimmering scales just beneath her sister's skin.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a 17-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Timekeeper: The Timekeeper Trilogy, Book 1

Two o'clock was missing. In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time - and a destroyed one can stop it completely. It's a truth that 17-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

You may think you know this story. There's a young queen about to be married. There are some good, brave, hardy dwarfs; a castle shrouded in thorns; and a princess cursed by a witch, so rumor has it, to sleep forever. But no one is waiting for a noble prince to appear on his trusty steed here. This fairy tale is spun with a thread of dark magic, which twists and turns and glints and shines.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

Henry "Monty" Montague doesn't care that his roguish passions are far from suitable for the gentleman he was born to be. But as Monty embarks on his grand tour of Europe, his quests for pleasure and vice are in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family's estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book V

Lord Fredrick Ashton may not feel ready to be a father, but with a little Ashton on the way he's sure about one thing: The wolfish curse on his family must end soon, before the child is born. Penelope willingly takes on the challenge; when Lady Constance's doctor prescribes a seaside holiday, Penelope jumps at the chance to take the three Incorrigible children to Brighton, where she hopes to persuade the old sailor Pudge to reveal what he knows about the Ashton curse.

Publisher's Summary

September is a girl who longs for adventure. When she is invited to Fairyland by a Green Wind and a Leopard, well, of course she accepts. (Mightn’t you?) But Fairyland is in turmoil, and it will take one 12-year-old girl, a book-loving dragon, and a strange and almost human boy named Saturday to vanquish an evil Marquess and restore order.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a really excellent fantasy for everyone who still has a child within. The narration (by the author) is perfect and adds much to the experience. Although not as good as Through the Looking Glass, it is pretty darn good. I enjoyed the characters, the subtle humor and lyric prose. Although slightly dark the spirit is bright and comforting. I wish my daughter was eight years old again. This would make a nice continuing bed time story.

"All children are Heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless At All. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown."

This book is every fairy tale and children's story and sad and happy and thrilling and scary Disney movie you ever saw, back when you were young enough for Disney movies to be taken at face value and you hadn't learned how to be cynical yet. Catherynne Valente writes with beautiful fairy tale prose that still sounds contemporary, and she balances the zaniness and fantasy of a down-the-rabbit-hole adventure with the darkness of true fairy tales and the lurking shadow of adulthood that only the finest children's authors can blend into a children's story without turning it either absurd or rendering it into something clever, something maybe even fun but not quite timeless. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a story that should become immortal. It should join Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia and yes, Harry Potter on the shelf of books for Every Child in the World.

I don't read much YA, and I read very little MG fiction, but this book won my heart and turned me into that 10-year-old who knew he was reading something wonderful again. If you have kids, read this to them, and if you don't, read it for yourself, because it's clever and subtle enough that even adults will find their hearts touched.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making begins with an ordinary 12-year-old girl named September who is taken by the Green Wind to Fairyland. It's so sudden and arbitrary it takes you a while to realize that Valente is very deliberately telling you right up front: "Yes, this is one of those stories where a child gets whooshed off to a magical world, and I'm not even going to bother making up a warddrobe or a tornado or a letter from Hogwarts to justify it." No, the Green Wind, wearing green jodphurs and with gold-green hair, just up and carries her away. On a leopard.

September, who is an ordinary girl with ordinary levels of intelligence, bravery, compassion, and maturity, then has Adventures. She makes friends. She is scared. She gets hurt. She is betrayed. And she discovers why she was brought to Fairyland. At every step, Valente shows a conscientious awareness of all the stories she is paying homage to -- sometimes she winks at them slyly, sometimes she practically dances them across the page complete with ruby slippers -- but this isn't a rip-off or a copy or a retelling, it's a new story. And September is awesome.

I swear that every child who has ever loved a book, and every adult who has ever been a child who loved a book, will enjoy this.

Cathrynne Valente's narration isn't exactly professional caliber compared to the professionals who narrate most audiobooks, but she does of course know all the places to put emphasis and all the emotions each line is supposed to invoke and she conveys them well, so listening to the author read her own book is, in this case, not a bad experience at all.

Would you be willing to try another one of Catherynne M. Valente’s performances?

Nope. I never got through this one. Her voice, frankly, annoyed me so much that I simply couldn't listen for longer than 30 minutes.<br/>The only author I have - so far - been able to hear reading his own book, is Neil Gaiman. Everyone else has been a huge disappointment.

Any additional comments?

The one star for story and for overall might very well be misleading. I never heard more than the first 30 minutes, then I turned it off, since I could not bear listening to the voice any more.

What is this thinking that the author of a book is somehow the best person to read the book. Not so in this case, AT ALL. The whiny character voices, the growly, too-low reading, the running out of breath before the end of sentences . . . seriously detracting from all else.

Would you recommend The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making to your friends? Why or why not?

They should have hired a professional to do the narration. The author spoke too fast, needs to work on enunciation and has no skill at verbally bringing the characters to life. Very few authors are also good readers. I am disappointed because I was looking forward to listening to this story.

Listening to the audiobook of Catherynne M. Valente reading her young adult novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011), was thoroughly enjoyable. What an extravagant and exuberant book it is, effervescing with the joys of language, imagination, story, and Faerie, and yet grounded by the depth of human experience. Valente's narrator is witty, wise, and sympathetic, and her reading voice enhances her narrator's character perfectly. Although she does not alter her voice much for her different characters (male or female, young or old, human or Fairy, etc.), she gives each of them just the right emotion and intention for their various moods and agendas. Her own nonchalant yet passionate voice invokes a poetess who loves language but does not take herself too seriously.

Listening to the book Ravished me to Fairyland along with the heroine, September, a bored and lonely 12-year-old girl living in Omaha, Nebraska, when out of the blue a Harsh Green Wind carries her off to Fairyland flying on his Leopard of Little Breezes. She soon learns that the inhabitants are not happy under the bureaucratic rule of the Marquess and finds herself forced to go on a quest. September is spunky, sharp, loyal, and sensitive, and when she needs to tell a lie, she says "I want to go home."

Valente playfully and originally uses familiar genre elements like personified winds, fairies, gnomes, gargoyles, witches, golems, werewolves, shadows, and changelings, as well as more unusual ones like Pookas (shapeshifting fairies from Celtic folklore), Glashtyns (horse-headed men from Manx legends), and Nasnas (demonic people with bodies cut vertically in half from Arab mythology). She's on the side of the magical and monstrous.

I chuckled with pleasure to hear Valente rattle off fantastic lists of things like the different dishes at a Spriggan Halloween wedding feast and the different fabrics used in the composition of the buildings of Pandemonium; and to hear her describe the different physical features of her different characters, like the blue-skinned, heavy and slight, whirlpool-tattooed Marid boy Saturday and the Wyverary A-through-L (whose mother was a Wyvern and his father, he believes, a Library), whose "lizardish skin glowed a profound red, the color of the very last embers of the fire" and who smells "like roasting cinnamon and chestnuts"; and to explain things like why children are heartless, why their courages are clean, and why they run faster than the speed of a kiss.

And she's also good at making the reader shiver or sigh or cry, as when the Leopard of Little Breezes growls at September, "We came for you . . . Just you"; Saturday finds a way to avoid having to whip the Velocipedes (wild bicycles) to make them go faster; the Marquess tells her story; and September learns the difference between those mortals who Stumble into Fairyland (via tornado or wardrobe) versus those who are Ravished there (like Persephone or me).

I shared this with my 6 and 8 year old children as we traveled to and from school each day. They would always say, "Mom, don't forget your iPod!" because they didn't want to miss out on this story....and neither did I. I'm sure I enjoyed this book as much if not more than my children. It was beautiful in every way: great quick moving plot, unusual and well-developed characters, fantastic imagery and great narration (read by the author). I'm going to have to get the print version now as well because there are parts I want to go back and read over and over again.